While spring setting in and the weather warming up has certainly been good for kicking the winter blues, it presents a major problem for the local highway department: potholes.

“As winter was ending, the roads thawed out pretty quick,” says Kosciusko County Highway Department Superintendent Scott Tilden. “It left severe potholes. We’re going to be dealing with them for quite awhile.”

Each day, the highway department typically has eight two-man crews out patching the county’s roads. Additionally, there are two crews running compact excavators and a crew with a backhoe digging out the really bad potholes, and, sometimes, a street sweeper and vacuum truck are sent out to clean up especially rough areas. And these crews have been at the pothole problem since late February.

“We’re doing pretty good. We probably have about 60 to 65 percent of the roads covered,” Tilden reports. “We’ve got another month or 45 days before we get all the roads covered.”

“Last year was really bad. This year was worse,” continues Tilden. “With the deep frost and quick thaw that we had, it really hammered us. This year probably ranked in the top three that I’ve seen.”

Tilden reports that potholes are problematic throughout the county, but were especially problematic in areas where roads set atop hard soil and clay. Patching a typical pothole involves digging out the hole, laying in a geogrid, back-filling with limestone and covering with asphalt. Of course, there is a hefty cost that goes along with it.

“Some of the earlier patch we get, we call that winter patch, we spent $25,000 on that,” says Tilden. Since the first of March, the county highway department has spent $172,000 on patch materials.

With Kosciusko County adopting a wheel tax last June, the highway department is getting some additional funding for roadwork, but Tilden says most of the money will fund the highway department’s summer and fall projects. “Most of the wheel tax will go to chipseal, surface treatments and hot mix paving,” Tilden reports. “Without the wheel tax, we wouldn’t have been able to do much of that. We’ll probably have to use some of the wheel tax money towards the end of the year.”

Regardless, Tilden says the additional funding from the wheel tax will be a great help to the highway department. “It was well needed,” he says. “With the roads acting like they did this spring, it’ll be greatly appreciated. Hopefully we won’t have as many issues down the road.”

“We’re gaining. We’ve gained a lot since the first week of March,” says Tilden. “I think we’ll be in pretty good shape in 45 days or so. Then we’ll be prepping the roads for our summer work.”

Obviously, to be able to fix a pothole, Tilden and his crews need to know where they are. “If you see bad potholes, please call us and let us know,” he says. “We’ll get to them as quick as we can.”

Tilden says he can usually get a crew out to a problem area within 24 to 48 hours of it being reported. Potholes may be reported by calling (574) 372-2356 or by sending an email to [email protected]. Potholes within Warsaw city limits should be reported to the Warsaw Street Department, (574) 372-9561.